


The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre

by ChillyHollow



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, Romance, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28833816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChillyHollow/pseuds/ChillyHollow
Summary: Part two of The Big Reveal, featuring the romantic duo of Spanner and Allie.
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18
Collections: The Big Reveal





	The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre

Valentine’s Day fell on a Saturday this year, so Ilsa had decided that instead of the usual take out curry they served when she and her husband had people over,she was going to use her fondue pots (she and Nick’d been gifted two sets for their wedding) and have a cheese-dipped feast.Of course Robin and Cormoran were invited.Robin was the first guest to arrive and was putting two bottles of wine in the cooler next to the bottles of beer as Ilsa put plates and cutlery on the dining room table.Nick was upstairs in the shower as he’d been delayed at work.Robin’s business partner Strike and Nick’s younger brother Dan, usually called Spanner, were joining them shortly.Spanner was bringing his latest girlfriend whom Ilsa and Nick had never met.Ilsa was all excited about this development.

“He’s never dated anyone longer than a month and never brought them over to eat, so we think this Allie might be The One.” 

“How long have they been dating?” Robin asked.

“Six weeks.”

Robin smiled.Ilsa was a hopeless romantic if she thought six weeks’ worth of sporadic dating meant Spanner was in love.But then Ilsa had been trying to make a match between Robin and Robin’s business partner Cormoran Strike (who was old friends with Ilsa and Nick) for years now.You had to be a diehard romantic to persist down that road past Strike’s Keep Out signs.Changing the subject, Robin remarked, “The table looks fabulous, Ils.”

The dining room table had wooden bowls of apples, broccoli florets, cubes of French bread, baby carrots, slices of salami, tiny meatballs and mushrooms as centerpieces.Ilsa was busy in the kitchen slicing strawberries in half.These would go in the refrigerator for the chocolate dipping they would do for dessert.“Thanks.Can you slice the cake into squares?We’ll have that with the strawberries and shortbread after we have eaten all the main course nibbles.”Ilsa put the berries away and started dumping shortbread biscuits into another wooden bowl while Robin sliced cake.

Nick arrived downstairs just as Spanner came in carrying beer.Behind Spanner was a small girl in glasses with her long blonde-brown hair in a high ponytail that was slightly to one side. She had a carrier bag in her hand.The girl marched up to the two women and said, “Hi, I’m Allie.Brought some wine and bread sticks.”She held out the bag and Ilsa took it with a smile.“Hi, Allie, I’m Ilsa, Nick’s wife. This is our friend Robin.Come back to the kitchen and we’ll finish up the nibbles for the fondue. How did you know to bring breadsticks?”

“Spanner told me it was going to be fondue and to put my hair in a pony tail so I wouldn’t get it in the cheese sauce.” 

Ilsa grinned.“I doubt you’ll get it in the cheese fondue but I suppose it’s best to be prepared.”

“Sure.Don’t want to make a bad impression on Spanner’s family.”

“You won’t do that.You brought wine.People who bring alcohol are adopted into the family immediately.”

Allie smiled nervously.Robin said, “Let’s put the wine in the fridge and then open those bread sticks and get them on the table.What do you want us to put them in, Ilsa?” Ilsa grabbed two tall glasses from the cupboard and handed them over.Allie and Robin took the breadsticks and glasses into the dining room and arranged them around the hot pad where the fondue pot would go later, shuffling the wooden bowls a bit to make room. 

Seeing how anxious Allie still looked, Robin said, “I think I’ll put my hair up, too.Where did I put my purse?”She grabbed it from the sideboard and rummaged in it until she found a hair tie in the bottom, then pulled her hair back into a pony tail.“There!We can’t have Spanner making fun of us for getting cheese sauce in our hair, can we?”

“I don’t think he’ll make fun of you,” Allie said.“But I don’t know anyone here, so I want to be careful.”

“Well, it will just be Nick and Ilsa and Cormoran and myself and you already know Spanner.” 

“Is Cormoran your boyfriend?”

“We’re business partners,” Robin explained.“He and Ilsa grew up together and met Nick when they were in school together in London.Cormoran introduced Nick to Ilsa, in fact.”

Allie sighed, "So romantic.” 

“Well, I guess we all meet people through friends or at work.”

“Not me.I met Spanner online playing an MMO.”

“Which one?”

“Elder Scrolls Online.We met in a crafting guild, got fed up and left together.We set up our own informal raiding schedule and played quite a while together before we got to know each other over chat and started going out.Girls are not always welcome in gaming so I was relieved he didn’t seem to care that I was female.”

“Spanner doesn’t seem very sexist to me but I don’t know him well.He consults with us for work occasionally and I’ve run into him here on curry nights.”

“Yeah, he said he’s worked for Nick’s friend on cases.You guys are private detectives?”

“That’s right.”They were interrupted by Spanner’s entry.He flopped down on the couch with a beer. 

“Hi, Robin.How’s tricks?Where’s Federico?”

“He’ll be here shortly.He had further to come as he’s been working in Fulham.”

“What’s he doing there?”

“Following someone who might be cheating on their spouse.Want something to drink, Allie?I think we should open some of that wine.”Allie followed Robin into the kitchen where Ilsa was fretting over the cubes of beef she was cooking. 

“Do those look done to you?I need them medium.”

Robin and Allie looked at the little squares.Robin said they looked good to her and Allie nodded agreement.“What wine do you want me to open, Ilsa?”

“How about that sauvignon that Allie brought?I’ve been dying to try that.”

Robin took the bottle from the refrigerator while Ilsa got down wine glasses and looked for the corkscrew.She found it just as Cormoran entered the kitchen.Allie’s eyes grew wide as she saw the bear of a man walk in and kiss Ilsa on the cheek.He took the corkscrew from Ilsa and the wine from Robin and deftly opened it for them.“This is Allie, Corm,” Ilsa said.

“Allie,” he said and handed over the first glass, favoring Allie with a smile.She blinked and looked a little dazzled.Robin knew the feeling.She’d been dazzled by Cormoran’s smiles in the past herself.He poured two more glasses for Ilsa and herself, then put the bottle back in the fridge and took out three beer bottles.He disappeared in the direction of the lounge where Spanner and Nick could be heard arguing over football. 

Ilsa rolled her eyes.“Would one of you light the gel for the fondue pot in the dining room?There are matches on the counter.I’ll start the chocolate warming later. After we eat the main course I’ll put the chocolate in the fondue pot and put it on the coffee table with the strawberries, cake and biscuits for dipping.” 

“Chocolate?” asked Allie, watching Robin strike a match and touch it to the little disk of fuel in the base of the stand for the fondue pot. 

“Yeah, we will have dessert fondue for pudding.Strawberries and cake dipped in chocolate with shortbread.”

“Sounds delicious, Ilsa,” said Robin.“Good thing Valentine’s Day is only once a year.I could grow fat on this diet.”Their talk turned to favorite foods.Ilsa thought it was a tie between wine and chocolate, Robin thought she could live on just fish and chips with an occasional order of mushy peas, and Allie’s favorites were diet Coke and Walkers’ pickled onion crisps. 

The table set and the cheese fondue ready, Ilsa topped up their wine glasses and called for the men to join them at the table.It was a jolly meal, with football talk alternating with video game chat among the younger two, discussions of work between Robin and Ilsa, a few medical jokes from Nick and serious eating on Cormoran’s part.Strike had thought that dipping small pieces of meat and vegetables into cheese sauce wasn’t much of a meal but it was surprisingly filling.They all had fun trying to fish the mushroom that fell off Allie’s fork out of the sauce (“I swear the cheese dip is a black hole and that mushroom is on the other side of the galaxy!”) and finally gave up to much laughter.

Once everyone had eaten their fill, Nick got them fresh drinks while Ilsa put the melted chocolate sauce in the living room’s fondue pot.Then Allie, Robin, and Cormoran carried the bowls of strawberries, shortbread, and cake into the living room and set them around the dessert fondue pot.There were new dipping forks already laid out along with small plates and napkins. 

“Do you make fondue often, Ils?” Robin asked as they all sat on the two love seats and the armchairs arranged around the coffee table.

“Not really.We got two fondue sets for our wedding but we rarely to go the trouble of making the sauces and cutting up all the things to dip.But it seemed romantic for Valentine’s Day so I thought we’d try it.”

“I don’t know about romantic,” Nick said, “but it is tasty.I loved the cheese sauce!Is that a pot of dark chocolate, Ilsa?”

“Yes, it’s melted with a little cream and Grand Marnier, plus vanilla and some cinnamon and chili pepper.”

“Sounds yummy," Robin said. 

Allie was looking a little hesitant, perhaps thinking of her accident with the mushroom.“How is it romantic?”

Nick answered, “Chocolate is supposed to be a mild aphrodisiac, for one thing, and of course a lot of animals court mates by feeding them.”Spanner speared a strawberry, dipped it in chocolate and offered it to Allie, but as she turned her head to see what he was doing, he managed to smear chocolate on her cheek.Ilsagiggled and both Spanner and Allie turned bright red. 

Strike took pity on them.“There’s a ritual to it,” he said.“Shall we demonstrate, Ellacott?”Robin gave him a wicked grin and nodded. 

“First you have to get in position, making sure that your partner is on the same page and willing to play along.”He moved closer to Robin on the loveseat and took her hand with his left hand, then lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them.Robin smiled and scooted a bit closer to him as well. 

“Now for the first bite.”Still holding Robin’s hand Strike speared a smallish strawberry half with a fork using his free hand, dipped it in the chocolate sauce, let it drip slightly into the fondue pot, then offered it to Robin who took it from the fork with her red lips and ate it. 

Robin then leaned forward to spear a cube of cake with a fork of her own and dipped it.Still holding Strike’s hand, she lifted the treat to his lips.“Then it is my turn to feed my partner.Make sure you choose their favorite item if at all possible.”

“And of course cake is mine,” admitted Strike.“Once you feed each other, lean in for a kiss.”He demonstrated, giving Robin a thorough kiss which she reciprocated. Ilsa’s mouth fell open in surprise.

Robin said, “Then you seal the deal by feeding your partner again.She dipped a piece of shortbread into the chocolate sauce and gave it to Strike who bit it in half.Robin, holding the biscuit by the unbroken end, dipped the other half which she then gave to Strike.He ate it while giving Robin a smoldering look.Allie gulped and Spanner looked stunned.Nick smiled.He’d not seen Strike’s full smolder in years, not since they were trolling the bars together as young men.Ilsa had tears in her eyes.

“The final step is to excuse yourself from company to seek a more private setting,” Strike said.He stood up, giving Robin his hand and pulling her to her feet.

“Lovely dinner, Ilsa,” Robin said brightly.“But Strike and I have plans for this evening so we have to be going.Nice to meet you Allie.” Robin grabbed her purse and Strike helped her into her coat.Then with a smile and a wave they were gone.

Ilsa beamed and Nick smiled.Spanner leaned forward and speared a bright red strawberry.Allie blushed and took the strawberry from Spanner.It wasn’t long before Ilsa and Nick were left alone to celebrate their own Valentine’s Day.

**Author's Note:**

> The Big Reveal is a series focusing on how our favorite couple reveal their new romantic relationship to their friends, family and co-workers.


End file.
